For Coaches On Couch, Interactive Tv Kickoff Set

Come Sept. 15, competitive game players in Chicago will be able to predict what Harbaugh will do before the play begins by subscribing to the Interactive Network, or IN, the first interactive TV service in the area.

IN's launch in Chicago will be the first major market gauge in the nation of viewers' appetites for such services. The service's major investors-Tele-Communications Inc., or TCI; NBC; Gannett Co.; Cablevision; and A.C. Nielsen-have bet millions of dollars on the belief that this is an appetite waiting to be sated.

Subscribers who buy the initial IN package for $299 will get a wireless portable remote and six months of basic service, which will let users compare predictions with others on the network. After that, basic service will be $15 a month. For an additional $10 a month, subscribers can compete for prizes.

Bears games will be among dozens of sporting events, game shows and other entertainment and news programs that will be interactive to IN subscribers. A cable-TV hookup isn't necessary.

The network will feature about 110 interactive events keyed to about 20 hours of programming each day, said IN's president, David B. Lockton, from its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters.

Interactivity will be available to subscribers on game shows such as "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy"; sports events, including professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, college sports, the Olympics and boxing; dramas such as "Murder She Wrote" in which viewers can predict who the murderer is; and news and public-affairs programs in which subscribers can express instant opinions.

IN was Lockton's brainchild. He received a patent for the technology in 1986. IN began testing the service in Sacramento in 1990 and expanded the test to the San Francisco Bay area in 1992. At the end of last year, the service had 3,300 subscribers, said Lockton.

But "we needed to show we could go big time," said Lockton. Chicago was the logical choice for this, he added, because NBC owns a station here, WMAQ-Ch. 5; TCI is a major presence in the cable market with half a million subscribers; SportsChannel, owned by NBC, TCI and Cablevision, is "huge in Chicago"; and Nielsen is based here.

Also, said Lockton, "we wanted average, normal people. We wanted a place with four seasons and lots of sports." In other words, said Lockton, IN was looking for a location "entirely different in culture and climate" from California. Chicago fit the bill.

IN will expand to 10 other major markets by spring of 1994, said Lockton, and will be available nationwide by fall of 1994.

Lockton believes IN will take off because it "leverages existing behavior patterns." People already watch TV and anticipate whether, for example, the Bears will pass or run. And they try to pick out who the murderer is before Jessica Fletcher does in "Murder She Wrote" and answer the "Jeopardy" question before the contestant.

IN works as a simulcast, transmitting signals in digital form over the unused parts of radio bands of FM radio stations as well as an unseen signal of WTTW-Ch. 11. Viewers will access the information via a 20-second local telephone call.

The system will be promoted with a 30-minute advertisement that will be shown on broadcast and cable TV. IN units will be sold at several department and electronics stores.